LOKMAT NEWS NETWORK
Nashik, Feb 22
The Nashik Municipal Corporation (NMC) has made a provision of Rs 70 crores in the budget for the Citilinc bus service, for the financial year of 2024-25. Citilinc's losses are increasing day by day. Due to this, another provision of Rs 8 crores has been demanded and this provision will be made in the revised budget.
The Nashik Metropolitan Transport Corporation's review meeting was held by NMC commissioner Dr Ashok Karankar, who is also the Chairman of the Corporation. In the meeting that was held on Wednesday, February 21, Citilinc’s board of directors demanded a provision of Rs 8 crores. Accordingly, this provision will be made in the revised budget.
As the Municipal Corporation has taken over the public transport services, it is facing a financial burden of about Rs 80 crores every year. Due to this, running the Citilinc bus service has become a hard task for the NMC. Despite the expenditure of Rs 163 crores per annum for Citilinc, the income received is only Rs 83 crores. Also, since no concrete steps are being taken by the Citilinc management to increase the income, the financial burden on the NMC is increasing.
NMC started its city bus service from 2021. In the two years after the Covid epidemic, although the Citilinc bus service has received good response from passengers, the loss of this bus service has reached Rs 80 crore. A loss of Rs 70 crore was incurred in the first year.
Info
Cost responsibility
Since no concrete action is taken by the Board of Directors and the officials of the Municipal Transport Corporation to increase the income of Citilinc bus service, the loss figure will continue to increase every year. Citilinc is responsible for all expenses such as payments to two contractors who operate 250 buses, and two contractors who have contracts to provide 500 bus conductors, two officers from MSRTC, one government officer, salary cost of office manpower, electricity bill, and government tax.